Mandatory showers policy at public schools no longer the rule

Monday

Dec 10, 2012 at 12:01 AMDec 10, 2012 at 10:13 AM

Years before police nabbed Scott D. Studer for videotaping student athletes showering in the varsity locker room at Jackson High, the former freshman basketball coach made it mandatory for players to wash up after practice.

Matthew Rink

Years before police nabbed Scott D. Studer for videotaping student athletes showering in the varsity locker room at Jackson High, the former freshman basketball coach made it mandatory for players to wash up after practice.

Mandatory shower policies, common at some schools through the mid-’90s, now are the exception, not the rule.

In fact, many teens say they would rather find other ways to freshen up after a sweaty phys-ed class or practice than stand naked in a communal shower with their peers.

Eric Copeland, a Washington High senior football player, remembers the awkward situation that he and his teammates found themselves in as freshmen.

“I remember our freshman year when we first had to (shower after practice),” Copeland said. “It was pretty embarrassing. Everybody was going in with their boxers and swim trunks on. Most of the kids who don’t play sports are still probably really uncomfortable with it.”

Copeland and teammates Dillon Cowan and Anthony McCartney, also seniors, say there’s rarely time to wash up after gym class. In fact, the only times they hopped in the team shower this football season was after long road trips and home games, before team dinners or following the August grind of two-a-days.

“When the season came, I’d just go home and shower,” Copeland said. “That’s how it is.”

NOT JACKSON’S POLICY

At Jackson, Studer was known to throw basketballs into the showers, and dump buckets of cold water and ice on the players. He also showered alongside the young men. Studer’s shower policy was not district policy, the school’s attorney said.

On Friday, Studer was arraigned in Stark County Common Pleas Court on eight counts of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material. He has admitted to police videotaping student athletes in the varsity showers as far back as 2005.

Studer was a longtime freshman basketball coach and aide for the district until Nov. 14, when police and Postal Inspection Service agents searched his home and found hours of videos and dozens of still images on his computer, DVDs and flash drives of student athletes in the showers.

The Postal Inspection Service is believed to be conducting an investigation into the alleged purchase of child pornography.

The mother of a current Jackson baseball player said her son was one of the first victims identified by police in three still images and one video. The images were recorded during the spring of 2010, when basketball players and baseball players occasionally washed up at the same time.

Even with Studer now behind bars, the baseball player has begun skipping out on the showers.

“He’s lifting now,” the mother said, referring to the baseball team’s conditioning program. “He has been showering at home now. He’s never really said it, but that’s a difference. I can tell that they’re joking about stuff that’s really bothering them. It’s going to be in the back of their minds.”

PERSONAL HYGIENE STILL STRESSED

Such policies were at one time commonplace in schools. Several Stark County administrators said they were required to shower after gym class as kids, but now it’s almost unheard of.

Administrators from Minerva, Massillon, Perry, Northwest and Canton Local say they have no mandatory policies in place. Other Stark County districts were either still reviewing their policies and procedures or had not immediately replied to requests for information before publication.

Perry Local Superintendent John Richard also said mandatory showers are a thing of the past. But school officials also say they must encourage good hygiene, especially for athletes like wrestlers and football players who make skin-to-skin contact and are at risk of acquiring various fungal diseases.

“It used to be more from a health factor more than anything,” Richard said, “but most of our kids don’t (shower after practice) anymore. That’s one thing that’s changed over the last decade. Most of our kids don’t and our coaches don’t ask them.”

“We encourage them, but they are by no means mandatory,” Chaddock added. “Because of self-esteem issues, we’re sensitive to exposing kids to those situations.”

Perry High wrestling coach and physical education instructor Dave Riggs remembers mandatory showers after gym class at Coventry High School in the ’70s.

“When we were in school, we were required to shower in phys-ed and athletics,” he recalled. “By the time you’re done, you almost have to take showers. But you have to have your privacy nowadays. That’s why the administrators are probably re-evaluating it.”

Riggs said that it’s important for coaches to stress personal hygiene, especially in a sport like wrestling.

“It’s very important to us,” he said, “You’d think you would take every precaution to clean up. ...But if a boy’s got personal issues against it, you can’t make them.”

RIGHT TO PRIVACY

David J. Millstein, a civil rights attorney in Youngwood, Pa., just outside of Pittsburgh, has handled hundreds of high-profile cases for the American Civil Liberties Union in his 42-year career.

No case drew as much attention as the 1994 fight with the Hollidaysburg School District, which required all students to shower nude after gym class until the ACLU threatened to sue.

Millstein, in a telephone interview Monday, said he had been approached by an overweight female student who did not want to be forced to shower in front of her peers.

“They ... enforced it rigidly by having the showers supervised by gym teachers,” he said. “Even the girls, even if they were modest, could not wear their undergarments.

“... The school board was extremely rigid and said they we’re not going to cave,” he recalled. “So I complained I’d take it to federal court.”

Millstein said the courts have consistently held that students enjoy a degree of privacy even on issues like locker searches.

“It was a significant privacy issue, a fundamental liberty interest under the 14th Amendment,” he said. “The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that liberty interests don’t end at the schoolhouse door. Students do have the right to privacy protections.”

Millstein knows of no shower-policy case that’s actually been decided by the court. He said states have little interest now in defending such policies.

“Our case (against Hollidaysburg) is more likely to be successful today than it was 20 years ago,” he said. “Society is more in tune with these issues than they were. There’s not a court now that would mandate a kid to disrobe and shower in front of someone. The interest of the state is just not high enough.”

IT’S NO LONGER THE RULE

John Britton, the attorney advising Jackson Local officials in the Studer case, has studied school law for more than 25 years. While some coaches or instructors may have a showering policy, he said it’s no longer the written rule.

Cellphones and other new tech gadgets, have posed a bigger threat to privacy for school districts than ever before. Many districts have accepted the technology’s benefits, Britton said, but are also continuing to deal with their side effects.

“You see more of the cases of teachers ‘sexting’ students, or fights in the school parking lot being recorded and put on the Web,” he said. “We don’t get these mass nudity cases. Think about it. The reason we’re even talking about this is because of Mr. Studer. In 87 other counties in Ohio, locker rooms are not an issue.

“I just don’t know how you do any more than what we already do, then hope that someone doesn’t go off the reservation,” he said.